Elizabeth Anderson
Elizabeth Anderson has performed on eleven international concert tours to Europe, Japan and Singapore, and is a regular guest lecturer and performer at universities and music schools throughout Australia.
The audience at the Nagoya Arts Centre in Japan applauded loud and long the third encore played by Elizabeth Anderson: Willard Palmer's Blues for Harpsichord. Such encore items proved so popular that her agent suggested she create an entire concert programme from them. A new all-20th-century programme was well received at the 1996 Adelaide Festival. That year she gave her tenth European concert tour, playing solo recitals and four-hands organ concerts with husband Douglas Lawrence. She received standing ovations for a popular programme at the Brandenburg Cathedral as well as in Hamburg.
In the same year her recording of Bach's monumental Goldberg Variations won critical acclaim in the Australian press. Numerous orchestral engagements followed, including 28 concerto performances with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland Philharmonic, the State Orchestra of Victoria and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra.
These concertos added to her already considerable experience playing continuo and concertos with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and with historical-instrument ensembles such as the Australian Baroque Ensemble and the Festival Orchestra (MIFOH).
In 1992 the Melbourne International Festival of Organ and Harpsichord (now the Autumn Music Festival) commissioned a harpsichord concerto from Philip Nunn, dedicated to her and first performed by her in the 1993 Festival closing concert with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra.
Eleven international concert tours have taken her to Japan and Singapore as well as throughout most of Western Europe. She has been a soloist in series including Symphony Hall, Osaka; Nagoya Arts Centre; Italy's Concerti in Ville; King Frederick's Castle, Berlin; St German, Geneva; Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark; and the Leeds and Aberdeen Town Halls. Major festivals have included the Glasgow Mayfest, Dublin Early Music Festival, Brandenburg Summer Festival, Dornburg Festival in Germany, the Haarlem Summer Academy in Holland, the Vendsyssel Festival in Denmark and the Carouge Spring Festival in Switzerland.
She has made many appearances in major Australian festivals, among them the Adelaide Festival, the Barossa International Music Festival, the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, the Castlemaine State Festival and the Autumn Music Festival.
Alongside a busy performing schedule she enjoys teaching and has been on the staff at several institutions, including the University of Melbourne and the Victorian College of the Arts.
Artist's website: www.elizabethanderson.org
Press quotes
Elizabeth Anderson is ... one hell of a harpsichordist ... the nonstop rhythmic and harmonic ostinato and brilliant passagework are truly mesmerizing
The multifaceted Elizabeth Anderson ... ascends to ever higher levels of excitement and with unbridled virtuosity arrives suddenly in a state of musical weightlessness ... an unconventional concert with an exceptional program and an exceptional artist
Vivacious Melbourne keyboard virtuoso Elizabeth Anderson plays the hottest, hippest harpsichord in the world today.
Anderson's keyboard virtuosity, as soloist and sympathetic accompanist, shines...
It takes a musician of high order, such as Elizabeth Anderson (in superb form) to reveal the magic enshrined in these deceptively easy miniatures and her every contribution provides unalloyed listening delight
Elizabeth Anderson is featured on the following titles
JS Bach Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord
Considering the fame of Bach’s solo violin partitas and cello suites, it is remarkable that his sonatas for viola da gamba and keyboard still sit in the shadows for many listeners. That some of their material appears elsewhere in his output hardly explains the neglect.
More Bizarre or baRock
"The hottest, hippest harpsichord in the world today," said one critic of the best-selling Bizarre or baRock. Melbourne harpsichordist Elizabeth Anderson returns with the long-awaited sequel.
Arranger
Anna Magdalena Bach's Book
Harpsichordist Elizabeth Anderson and boy soprano Jacob Lawrence present the complete musical contents of the 1725 notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach, from the beloved Bist du bei mir to suites, chorales and the aria later known from the Goldberg Variations.
The Convict Harpsichordist
John Grant, frustrated in love, shot a London lawyer in the buttock and was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey. Granted a reprieve, he reached Sydney Cove in 1804 with Australia’s first harpsichord. What music did he play? Elizabeth Anderson answers on the instrument he brought.
Merry Christmas
Elizabeth Anderson and friends put a fresh twist on Christmas carols: eight tracks packaged as a Christmas card, with a vibrant cover and space for a personal inscription.
Arranger
Bolero: Music for Organ 4 Hands
Douglas Lawrence and Elizabeth Anderson play organ four hands on the Melbourne Concert Hall’s French-style Casavant. Bolero gathers favourites and rarities arranged or written for two players at one console.
Bizarre or baRock
Elizabeth Anderson explores harpsichord music across four centuries: from Conceição’s raw 17th-century battle piece and traditional Baroque repertoire to jazz, blues, Gershwin and the Beatles with drums and bass. Weird, wild, wacky and wonderful – you’ve never heard the harpsichord like this.
Arranger
Goldberg Variations
A rare chance to hear Bach’s complete Goldberg Variations with every repeat, the fourteen canons on the Goldberg bass, and the Italian Concerto, played by Elizabeth Anderson on harpsichord. Two CDs for the price of one.
Musical Portraits from the Salons of Paris
Harpsichordist Elizabeth Anderson recreates a salon concert from pre-revolutionary Paris. Grand, lively ‘character pieces’ by Forqueray, Duphly and Balbastre — musical portraits of celebrated figures — are brought to life with deft, accomplished playing.
Producer
Fandango
Flamboyant Spanish and French Baroque keyboard music from harpsichordist Elizabeth Anderson, joined by Douglas Lawrence on chamber organ for Soler’s two-keyboard concerto and Couperin’s musettes.
Contributor: liner notes
Performing as The Choir of Ormond College
The Choir of Ormond College has, since its founding in 1982 under Douglas Lawrence, become the first Australian choir to earn ongoing international recognition for its concert and recorded work.
Beatus Vir
Recorded live on their 1999 European tour, the Choir of Ormond College under Douglas Lawrence presents small-scale sacred works in up to eight parts by Palestrina, Gesualdo, Handl, Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Stanford and Rheinberger.
Bach Byrd Britten
The Choir of Ormond College, directed by Douglas Lawrence, presents Bach, Byrd and Britten. Bach’s motet Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden and Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices stand beside Britten’s Five Flower Songs and A Ceremony of Carols.
Compositions by Elizabeth Anderson also appear on
Keys to Heaven
The Australian Chamber Choir opens with the first recording of Agata della Pietà’s cantata Ecce nunc, written in eighteenth-century Venice by an orphan of the Ospedale della Pietà and reconstructed by Elizabeth Anderson. Sacred works by Palestrina and Allegri complete the programme.
Elizabeth Anderson also appears on
Devils of the Night
On this, his first CD for Move Records, Tasmanian composer and didjeridu virtuoso Ron Nagorcka is joined by long-time collaborator Robert Williams, the Melbourne pianist, educator and co-composer.
O Rose So Red
Melbourne-based Schola Cantorum, directed by Gary Ekkel, present chants, songs and motets that honour the Virgin Mary across more than a thousand years of sacred repertoire.
A Baroque Christmas
The music on this CD is a historical Christmas “pick of the pops”, from the late 1400s to the end of the Baroque period. Directed by Douglas Lawrence, the Australian Chamber Choir offers a programme recorded live in concert during their 2019 European tour. The 17 tracks are drawn from lesser-known seasonal works, championing a sublime repertoire that is all too often neglected.
Soul
Douglas Lawrence OAM leads the Australian Chamber Choir through sacred music spanning Renaissance polyphony, early Baroque splendour and African-American spirituals.
Other credits
A Baroque Collection
Douglas Lawrence plays Baroque organ masterworks on Jürgen Ahrend’s acclaimed instrument in Monash University’s Robert Blackwood Hall, a programme spanning Zipoli to Buxtehude.
Elizabeth Anderson is a member of
Elysium Ensemble
The Elysium Ensemble has been acclaimed by critics for its exciting performances, fine musicianship and authoritative interpretations of Baroque and Classical repertoire on period instruments.
The Choir of Ormond College
The Choir of Ormond College has, since its founding in 1982 under Douglas Lawrence, become the first Australian choir to earn ongoing international recognition for its concert and recorded work.